Review: The Menzingers – Some Of It Was True

The Philadelphia-based punk rockers, The Menzingers, are showing no signs of slowing down on their great seventh studio album called Some Of It Was True. Produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver, the War on Drugs, Waxahatchee), the album feels as reinvigorated as the band themselves, and highlights the band’s songwriting improvements from moving away from more introspective songs to more worldly issues that affect the lives of everyone around us. While their last record, Hello Exile, was drenched in the cloud of COVID quarantines, Some Of It Was True finds The Menzingers reaching outside of their usual comfort zone of writing by expanding upon the ideas they’ve tinkered with over their storied career, and quite possibly, creating their most fully-realized work of art to date. This album was recorded at the legendary Sonic Ranch in the heart of El Paso, Texas, and this foursome utilized the strengths of producer Brad Cook to create a record that not only moves the needle of creativity further down the line for The Menzingers, but also makes for an ultra-memorable statement as one of the best albums of 2023.

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Review: The Menzingers – On the Impossible Past

On the Impossible Past

I’ll never forget the first time I heard On the Impossible Past. I had a copy from a friend who told me for months to check out The Menzingers and that this album would blow my mind. I was in my car getting ready to head to work, when I finally decided to fire up the record on my iPod. At the time I was 23, I was in my first year out of college, working a job I hated and was missing the great times I was having with friends months earlier. As I put the car in drive, the words “I’ve been having a horrible time, pulling myself together,” spilled out of my speakers and time stopped. “Good Things” immediately wowed me and all I could do was turn up volume up. 

On that drive to work, I never made it past “Burn After Writing.” I kept going back to “Good Things” and repeatedly listened to the opening two tracks bleed into each other. It wasn’t until my ride home where I discovered “The Obituaries” and what the rest of the album had to offer. Listening to On the Impossible Past in full for the first time was truly an out of body experience for me. The storytelling by singer/guitarist Greg Barnett and singer/guitarist Tom May swept me off to a different world that took place years ago; I was getting drunk in the back of a Lions Club, I was getting drunk with Casey before I did dishes and then I walked home single, seeing double. 

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